James Fowler called these life stages the “stages of faith”–your faith being the way you make sense of the world. After listening to the life stories of hundreds of people, Fowler believed he had found a consistent pattern of six major faith stages which occur in an invariant order. However, most people complete only three or four during their lifetime.

These stages have to do with the type of faith but not with the amount of faith. Profound faith in God or unbelief may occur at any stage. Faith stage determines what one considers to be the important questions, what counts as evidence, and how and with what cognitive tools one looks for answers. The stages can be thought of as the different lenses through which we view the world as we journey through life.

Faith stage transitions occur when, in response to new experiences or life crises, our old way of seeing the world collapses and a new faith structure is built. As seen in the stories in this issue of Adventist Today, these faith stage transitions are sometimes traumatic, accompanied by much painful soul-searching, and they can bring people into conflict with their faith communities.

I. Magical World

The Stage 1 child of ages 2-6 perceives the world through the lens of imagination and intuition unrestrained by logic. The preschooler thus lives in a numinous, magical world in which anything is possible.

II. Concrete Family

Stage 2 children of ages 6-12 see the world through the lens of story–a concrete, literal, narrative world of family and tribe, ritual and myth. They begin to identify with a faith community, which may be religiously, politically or culturally defined, and to locate themselves within its story–the story that tells you who you are.
Stage 2 collapses when teenagers use their newfound power of abstract thought to deconstruct their previous concrete understanding of the world. If they are not provided with a Christian peer group and adult level religious teaching, they will now be at high risk for rejecting their religion as childish, and identifying instead with the surrounding secular culture.

III. Faith Community (This is the stage where 70% of the population plateaus)

The teenager in Stage 3 sees the world through the lens of the peer community. We are socialized into our faith community, “catching” our values and ways of thinking unconsciously from our peer group and subculture. We are immersed in the thought system of our faith community like a fish that does not perceive the water in which it swims.

Stage 3 usually continues as the adult faith stage of most people in our church and society. Once the culturally accepted ways of thinking become part of us, we tend not to question them, nor the authoritative sources from which they derive. At Stage 3 my identity is based on being part of a group with shared history, traditions and values. Without Stage 3 persons, denominations or cultures would have little cohesiveness or continuity. People may change denominations, however, if they can be convinced that the new group is more faithful to accepted authoritative sources, such as the Bible or the Vatican.

Group-based identity is also a cause of conflict. It is hard to deal calmly and rationally with issues which touch on one’s identity.

Adult Stage 3 types, then, tend to be loyal and support the church and its beliefs and practices. They may react strongly if they perceive any of these things as under attack, since their identity is tied to them. They form the majority and financially supportive backbone of any church.

IV. Rational Constructs

If the traditional answers stop making sense, Stage 3 collapses. In some respects Stage 4 is a continuation of the rational examination of belief that begins during Stage 3. Now, however, not only individual beliefs, but the whole previously unquestioned traditional and authoritative bases of belief are called into radical account. One develops the capacity to step back from one’s own faith heritage and examine it through the lens of science and reason, compare it to other faith traditions, throw out the parts that don’t make sense, or even abandon it altogether. One’s universe is now reconstructed along self-chosen rational lines, and one’s religion (if retained) must, above all, make sense.

In transition to Stage 4, people may experience deep disappointment and anger on finding that some of the beliefs they had based their lives on do not stand up to their investigation.

They may nevertheless remain in the church if they can reinterpret their faith along reasonable lines and find a supportive local church community with Stage 4 role models and tolerance of diversity. Leaders who insist on having 100 percent of the church agreeing with “fundamental beliefs” as a condition of retaining membership are essentially demanding that all Stage 4 parishioners leave the church. Members who happen to be passing through the Stage 4 transition but who hold highly visible positions in the denomination often become casualties, whereas less vulnerable individuals who are members of supportive local church communities may remain and thrive.

V. Numinous Universe

Stage 4 collapses when we run up against the limits of rational thought and the search for certainty ends in failure and even despair. Stage 5, which may begin at mid-life or later, in some respects is similar to Stage 1. Seeing once more through the lens of the imagination and intuition, we again come to live in a numinous universe of mystery, wonder and paradox. The answer is not an explanation, so science and reason are no longer the primary tools with which we attempt to apprehend ultimate reality.

Having taken authority into ourselves at Stage 4, we now give back to sacred symbol, story, tradition, liturgy and faith community the numinous power they enjoyed in our consciousness decades earlier. God, previously the target of much theological discussion, is experienced in a way that is not so neatly captured in a theological box. Without giving up or devaluing one’s own religious heritage, there may be a new openness to learn from other faith traditions.

VI. Selfless Service

Stage 6 faith is rare. Such individuals identify deeply with all of humanity, and therefore tend to spend themselves in service of worldwide issues of love, justice and brotherhood. Some possible examples are Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, and Mother Theresa.

Coexistence

How are people at all these faith stages supposed to coexist in the same church? To those at any given stage, the next stage looks like loss of faith and the previous stage is repulsive. To people in Stage 3, Stage 4 sounds like giving away the store. To those in Stage 4, Stage 3 looks like unthinking traditionalism and Stage 5 like mystical mush.

The problem is worsened by some Stage 3’s who engage in witch hunting at the first scent of heresy, and Stage 4’s who gleefully bait or ridicule their Stage 3 colleagues.

How do we provide for diversity without losing community? There is, of course, no easy answer. But knowing about stages of faith can help us understand how tradition and continuity, as well as new ideas and diversity in the faith community, are inevitable and necessary. All of the stages are important and valid expressions of faith, and people in all stages have a right to serve and be served by faith communities.

Cynthia Bourgeault

The word religion means “to bind together” although it often does not seem that way. I need not expound on the danger of religious zealotry and exclusivist claims of salvation. We need to look no further than the new atheists (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins) who have been calling religion to task for the destruction we have witnessed over the centuries…this is not a bad thing.

Yet, they are missing an important point that all of us often miss. Every religion has an inside and an outside and we confuse the map (the outside or exoteric religion) with the territory (the inside or esoteric religion). The critique of religion is usually a critique of “outside” religion.

It tends to start like this: People have an “inside” encounter with a Master or teacher (Jesus, Buddha, Krishnamurti) and the community and/or teacher experience the sacred and a deep sense of the Source of all creation. They share their revelations using metaphorical language.

Why metaphor? After all, literal interpretations of metaphor in sacred texts have engendered much human suffering and misunderstanding.

This is true, but how else does one describe the feeling and spiritual insight after a deep encounter with divine mystery? It’s the same reason we use metaphor to describe love… the actual experience is difficult to convey…music, poetry, metaphor and story convey the feeling and the mystery of the ineffable. Inside religion invites us into this inner experience.

Outside religion is created as the community develops rituals, practices, music, moral prescriptives and doctrine to honor and celebrate the mystery. They create a sort of map which points to the territory of inner spiritual experience.

Each informs the other. As new territory is discovered through ever evolving encounters with the divine; maps and metaphors are redrawn which illuminate insights to each new generation.

Outside religion goes awry when the community begins to confuse the map with the territory. Understandably, we tenaciously cling to old maps because they offer security, clarity and familiar signposts.

Yet, this is like following your outdated GPS and insisting that Highway 25 is still there “because it says so on the GPS” when Hwy 25 was washed away in last year’s hurricane. Imagine using a map from 300 AD to get to your next appointment.

The earlier map wasn’t wrong; it was accurate for the time. Yet, as we evolve, our ways of knowing the divine mystery evolve. So, new maps are created for evolving communities.

Yet, it would also be shortsighted to trash the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, Buddhist sutras, and the Tao. These texts are rich with metaphor and spiritual insight which invite us into own encounters.

As we mature, our challenge is to develop a deeper trust of the still voice of Spirit inside of ourselves. In community, we share our encounters and identify the ways in which we get lost.

We may also find ourselves pulling out other maps and reading sacred texts from other traditions to expand our ways of knowing the Greater Reality. We may develop evolving moral codes that are congruent with new insights we’ve gained.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who hasn’t found their faith deepened by an authentic encounter with another spiritual tradition. After reading the Tao, the poet Rumi, the Bhagadvad Gita and countless Buddhist texts, I read Jesus’ words so differently. It was if scales fell from my eyes as I asked myself, “How did I not see this before?”

Yet, in the timeless realm, these texts and communities are simply useful maps. The territory is the profoundly simple recognition that we never were separate from the divine who waits for us moment by moment and asks us again and again, “Who do you say that I AM?”

It is in the silence, for which there is no substitute, that we find the intimacy with the One that we seek. Everything emerges out of silence and returns to back to the silence. Divine territory…not up there or down here, not before that life or after this life. We are swimming in it right now.

The Sufi poet, Rumi writes:

There is a candle in your heart,
ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul,
ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?
You feel the separation
from the Beloved.
Invite the Beloved to fill you up,
embrace the fire.
Remind those who tell you otherwise that
Love
comes to you of its own accord,
and the yearning for it
cannot be learned in any school.

Only words on a paper unless we relax into the silence and try it for ourselves. With time and practice, the individual and community binds together, relating to from the inside and on the outside in a sort of cosmic dance of “I” and “WE” and the “I AM” which is the very Source of all creation.

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Books which invite us to an “inside” perspective of religion…a religion that truly binds together:

The Wisdom Way of Knowing…Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition to Awaken the Heart by Cynthia Bourgeault (Bourgeault is an Episcopal priest, writer, retreat leader and director of the Wisdom School and the Contemplative Society).

Kabbalistic Healing…A Path to an Awakened Soul by Jason Shulman (Shulman is a recognized teacher of Buddhism and Kabbalah, which is “inner Judaism.” This lovely book focuses on the healthy integration of ego and its relationship with transcendent reality…the divine).

Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness and the Essential Self by Kabir Helminski (outstanding intro to the Wisdom path by a Sufi teacher)

Lost Christianity by Jacob Needleman (Needlman is from the Jewish tradition and this is his exploration into the Christianity he intuited on one level and decided to research it…amazing insights and fascinating read).

The Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s Religions by Huston Smith (Smith is the foremost scholar of comparative religion, a Christian who studied and practiced Vedanta Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and Sufism for over ten years. Smith has been interviewed by Bill Moyers on PBS and his tape series, The World’s Religions, is a must see for anyone interested in the deep, common vein running through the world’s religions).

Howard Thurman: Essential Writings (an African American mystic whose deep identification with God…inside religion…gave birth to a life which invited students and congregants to deeply engaged in the civil rights movement..an expression of outside religion. His quote: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive” is oft cited by poets and teachers who are inviting others to “Begin within.”)

He didn’t point to the reading of sacred texts as the Rosetta stone of the spiritual journey.  Nor did he say much about human immorality or divine goodness.  He wasn’t terribly interested in debates on women’s suitability for the priesthood or divorce or the state of the family.

He didn’t suggest people learn their Enneagram style or engage in selfless acts of service.   He wasn’t irreligious; he was a Jesuit priest from India.

What deMello discovered is that spirituality isn’t about believing in something or someone; it is about getting to the root of one’s assumptions about God/Reality/Being, about the self, about the little sub-cultures which influence us and about natural world which impacts our awakening.

Why bust assumptions?

So we can have an authentic experience of Being/God which is different from talking or reading about God.  DeMello knew we go through life in sort of a coma.

We are asleep to the countless assumptions we make.

And, if we are swimming in a sea of assumptions, how can we really assume we know anything about Reality or God that isn’t conditioned by our egoic blindness or the blindness of our cultural assumptions?

I’m not advocating we do away with rituals, sacred texts, music, service, meditation or prayer as all are valuable fingers pointing to the sun…. but they are not the sun itself.  They are simply tools which have the potential power to elicit deeper spiritual awareness.

This seems to be a crucial time in human history to recognize the hazards of religious abuse; we’ve tools of mass destruction at our hands and we are poised on the brink of a massive ecological alteration.

I suppose I’ve a certain sensitivity to this issue as I’m sort of in the business. I’ve seen enough prejudice, misogyny, homophobia and class and cultural warfare all in the name of Jesus/God to make me exceedingly wary of definitive religious and political pronouncements.

Let me also be clear I’ve witnessed heart opening compassion, acts of forgiveness and personal/collective transformation because of one’s rootedness in a spiritual tradition/practice; it’s not about the religion though…it’s what his happening on the inside of us.

Religion provides a map for many, but if we mistake it for the territory, we can get into trouble.

At this writing, the Catholic tradition is using a theologically suspicious argument to continue its refusal to ordain women.  Many post-Vatican II Catholics are not buying this as they’ve experienced massive doctrinal shifts to keep up with insights wrought by cultural and scientific evolution.

One need look no further than shifting attitudes about slavery and anti-Semitism to recognize the challenges of resting one’s argument on scriptural literalism; the Vatican and many Christian denominations have developed the capacity to contextualize scripture through the cultural lens and time in which it was written.

In other words, we are a bit suspicious when those in power become dogmatic and magnify and literalize the one issue that well, serves the status quo that maintains their position of power.

No religion or bishop, priest, pastor, guru, or spiritual teacher is exempt from the capacity to use its texts to serve; the wisest ones I’ve seen have a capacity to own their own shadow, observe their illusory fixations and identify the individual and collective compulsions  which distort their worldview.

Which brings us back to the notion of awakening as the core component of the spiritual journey.  Because of the tenacity of our individual and collective blindspots, the imperative seems to be one in which we engage in practices which elicit awakening.

Interestingly enough, this was central to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  He resisted pharisaical pronouncements and instead invited followers into their own stories and their own experience.

He answered their questions with questions or parables rather like a Zen master giving students a koan to solve which reveals something about the illusions they have about themselves and the world.

(As I shared some of this with my Jewish friend this morning she commented that info about this Jesus has been astonishingly absent in her neck of the woods).

A spiritual practice of contemplation offers an elegantly simple way of inviting the seeker into silence…this takes us beyond our projections about Jesus…God…ourselves. The practice of silent stillness, Beatrice Bruteau says, “…forces us to deeper levels of reality. Deprived of distraction, we must either panic or come to a new kind of authenticity.

To avoid the horror of isolation, we must open ourselves to experience our union with the natural world, with the human world and with God without the cover-up the prattling had afforded us. We must learn to breathe trust, the unspoken communion.”

Thus, when we do engage in ritual, compassionate service, sacred reading, moral decision making,  understanding of our Enneagram fixation…we have cultivated an inner compass which is increasingly free of the illusory fixations of our false self.

The spiritual path invites us to shift our focus from God/Being…whatever you call the greater Reality… as one who is worshipped to one who is experienced authentically.

When the people of his time tried to make Jesus king, he ran for the hills.  He knew the risk of projecting assumptions about him.   Go to your room and pray in secret, he said.  So, how do we start?

Contemplative practice.

Contemplative practices include relaxing emotional and bodily tensions,  breathing consciously, engaging in a rhythmic, calming routine congruent with the rhythms of nature, cultivating a healthy diet and a healthy body, resting in the stillness of contemplation and/or communal silence, and developing a capacity to self-observe our habitual patterns.

In short, you begin to wake up. See. Remove the plank from your awareness.  You will fall asleep again.  This is okay.   Wake up again.  Inside of yourself, you will find the kingdom of God. When you seek, you may be troubled.  When you become troubled, you will become astonished as you discover the kingdom…inside of yourself.

Mystics from every tradition share this experience.

And, as you cease to be uptight about yourself, you love more freely.  Be prepared…You will fall asleep again  You will contract and collapse inside of your own egoic world.  No big deal.   Simply notice and wake up again.

You will slowly discover you have been one with the One all along who lives and breathes inside of you, others and the natural world in which you live.

Watching John work is pure pleasure…his life’s work is rooted in experiences of “soul crushing depression,” death and loss, betrayal, and love of good friends and a sweetheart of a wife who I hope to get to know even better.

Life is a miracle of Grace, says he…and…he combines Zen, contemplative Christianity, music, satire, astounding compassion, and cut to the core honesty…his dedication to service knows no bounds which makes him one of my favorite people….

He’s using the Enneagram with his clients as he’s convinced that certain types come to addiction through their own distinct portal…we filmed a conversation about the Enneagram and recovery for two hours. Stay tuned for YouTube clips.  My son, webmaster extraorinaire, is helping me edi

As I got into my car and took a deep breath, I began to have a sense I was in “shadow” territory.

What is the Shadow?

The shadow is the part of ourselves we hide, repress, deny, rationalize.  It is a container for the aspects of ourselves we judge as unacceptable or unworthy.  For some of us, we have a side of ourselves that feels weak or needy, for others it might be controlling or angry, and for others it might be lazy and apathetic.  Most of us have all these shadow qualities.

And, we are certain if we think positively and ignore these qualities, we will be loving, peaceful and enlightened or strong, capable and in control…masters of our destiny.

Yet, the shadow shows up in all sorts of clever disguises.  We soon find ourselves around people who mirror our shadow; they draw forth the unsavory feelings inside of ourselves by pushing our buttons and reactivating unresolved anger, fear or pain.

Or, we may have dreams which reveal surprising characters playing unacknowledged shadow characteristics.  I know a rather calm person who has dreams of anger and violence; she also finds her dreams populated by animals who symbolize power and aggression.  Dreams tend to take us to hidden places in our psyche.

The shadow also shows up in the qualities of another person who pushes our buttons.   For instance, you may notice you are triggered by a person who plays the victim.   Shadow work invites you to consider: “In what area in your life are you being served by playing a victim role?”   Until you develop a sense of compassion and acceptance for the victim inside of you, it will continue to play out in your life as old emotional wounds are reactivated.

Embracing the Shadow

Debbie Ford writes: “The process of embracing our shadow side calls us to uncover the gifts and receive the wisdom hidden within each and every aspect of ourselves, particularly the ones that we are ashamed of or embarrassed by.

Rather than viewing our weakness, our smallness, our insecurities or our rage as enemies or as obstacles to moving forward in our lives, this process guides us to embrace our so-called defects as the powerful teachers that they are.”

The universe is a mirror of our own consciousness.  Shadow work is an opportunity for compassion and acceptance of self and other.   When we accept these rejected aspects of ourselves, we are more accepting of them in another.  Furthermore,  the rejected aspects of ourselves become vehicles of our own transformation.

Shadow work releases tension because we free up creative energy when we stop hiding from ourselves and others.  We may loosen individual and cultural constraints of well worn paths as we chart our own. Or, we may deepen intimacy as we are less defended; integrating the shadow self softens defensiveness.

With some reflection, I began to realize the women at lunch were mirrors of my unlived life.  I had stayed home with my children for 13 years and had insisted it was a good decision.  Yet, I’d never allowed myself to feel the loss that comes with the choice to stay home: the sense of a separate identity, the income, the book I hadn’t written, the use of talents or energies that tend not to be exercised at home.

I often wonder what another lunch would be like if I encountered them today.  I would be deceiving myself if I assumed I’d fully integrated the shadow elements these women mirrored for me.   Yet, even as I consider them now, I have more of a sense of lightness and even some humor about it all.  Shadow work has freed up a reserve of energy which has enabled me to move into a career I love.

It can be helpful to explore with others who are also looking at shadow.  If you are feeling a call to travel this journey of integration, know you are welcome to our Integral Women group, “Romancing the Shadow” this fall on Thursday mornings.

Helen Palmer will be in Cincinnati from September 26th to 27th.

Contact:   leslie@lesliehershberger.com for details

“The soul is like a wild animal: tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, yet exceedingly shy…

(Listening) practices must honor the nature of the human soul, that place within us where we know the difference between reality and illusion. The soul is like a wild animal: tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, yet exceedingly shy. To see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is crash through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the foot of a tree, the creature may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will glimpse the precious wildness we seek.”

Palmer recognizes that when we go through challenging times, we know inside of ourselves there is an answer. Yet it takes time and the quiet witness of a receptive friend to find that place. Which brings him to his next point which was ever so new to me when I encountered it:

“Thou shalt not fix, save, advise, or set each other straight….

Ironically, community falls apart not only when we ignore each other but when we “help” each other. When someone shares a problem, and someone else says exactly what to do about it, neither the person with the problem nor anyone else is willing to be vulnerable again. What the soul wants is not to be fixed or saved but received. Our deepest need is to be seen and heard and held, as we are, without being evaded or invaded. How should we respond to each other if not with fixes and saves? By asking honest, open questions not to satisfy our own curiosity but (in Nelle Morton’s great phrase) to “hear each other into speech,” deeper and deeper speech, so that the speaker might better understand what his or her inner teacher is trying to say.

An honest question is one I ask without knowing the right answer. An open question does not back the other person toward the answer I want to hear. ‘Have you thought about seeing a therapist? is not an honest, open question…”

As I read this piece the first time, I took a deep breath as I realized the truth of it. How many times do we try to “fix, advise or save?” How often do we long to have someone simply listen? How often do we simply want someone who can hold a space for whatever we are experiencing as WE experience it…in our own unique way?

He writes that “soul-truths do not yield to the headlong or headstrong approaches favored by academics and “can-do” leaders.” Rather, they come from inside of ourselves when given ample time to simmer.

This feels uncomfortable for a listener because as we listen to the vulnerability of another, we encounter spaces inside of ourselves hidden from our awareness…we encounter our own vulnerability and our own realization we don’t have all the answers for ourselves or others. Scary stuff…to see self in other and accept all aspects of this self as part of the complex, bundle of paradoxes inside each of us.

Finally, Palmer writes, “Contemplation, rightly understood, does not plunge us into a pit of narcissism but returns us to the needs of the world with clarity and commitment. A receptive listener provides witness to our discovery of inner truth.”

No fixing. No advising. No saving. A simple receptive presence…

I have so many on my prayer list right now…those who have lost a child, a family friend with two small children dying of cancer, friends with ill parents, children who are seeing joy and suffering each day and becoming aware of the reality of living.

Yet, I awaken and look out my window and the sun is coming over the pines and I smell coffee brewing in the kitchen. I am filled with gratitude.

So, I go to Gratefulness.org this morning to search for a poem or reflection to send to my cousin who just lost one of her twin babies and sits with the other in intensive care. I find a reflection which says that “prayer” comes from the same Latin root word as “precarious.” In this sense, prayer is not a request. Rather, it is reconnecting with the very Source from which we come. We open our eyes to the heart of everything.

So, I smell coffee, I hear the purr of my cat and in a moment, I feel grief. I read: “We come to see these twins, grief and joy, as playing with each other, teaching each other, caring for each other. A sudden gladness can unexpectedly shine forth in a time of great sorrow.”

The point is that a fully lived life turns from neither–we stand at the altar of grief with someone in body or spirit and in the same flickering moment, we feel abundant gratitude and joy for creation itself.

I suppose this is why I love the Enneagram. It is imbued with paradox. Right in the center of the Gluttony of my mind, lies the Constancy of my heart. For my friend, a Two, right in the deflation of Pride is the power of the Humility which offers her a taste of sweet surrender that she can’t be all things to all people and her call is to come home to herself.

For my friend, a Six, when Fear or uncertainty threatens to overwhelm her, smack dab in the middle of it is Faith and Courage and she remembers that she has held ground again and again.

For my friend, a Three struggling day by day with the forward movement that can propel her to the great Successful Accomplishment, she finds in the middle of this crazy Deceit that tells her she is what she does, a sliver of the light of Hope which was inside her all along that reminds her that her life light is not contingent upon a high profile win.

For my husband and daughter, Nines on the Enneagram, the self-forgetting of their least favorite word, Sloth, is the very quality that will spur them to Right Action as they remember the wonder of themselves.

And so on. You can write your own paradox as it is embedded in the fabric of your being. It is the old friend who reminds you again and again, you are an emanation of the Source of Life.

Paradox…we defend and project in our own way, don’t we? We find such creative ways to resist both authentic radiance and the “not-so-distant” wailing of a wounded world. A full life includes both, doesn’t it?

George Orwell wrote, “It is a constant struggle to see what is under one’s nose.” This is the core of the understanding what goes wrong in politics. The human mind can only take in so much information at one time. So, the mind is going to quickly absorb the familiar. It will resist allowing into its viewscreen that which is unfamiliar. So, it takes a struggle to allow other perspectives.

We may see a hundred bits of data on one issue and the mind will land on the data the confirms a pre-established set of assumptions and then MAGNIFY it as THE truth. This is brain science 101. It is why we all can’t play well in the sandbox. It is why entire empires have been brought down–they were in a fog of delusion and confusion and couldn’t see what was in front of their faces.

A good campaign manager understands this. They take a small piece of data out of context from a news conference or public speech that makes the opponent look ridiculous, assign an image that riles the masses, magnify it and voila…you have yourself a powerful accusation that makes the other guy look like an incompetent.

This is the power of developing a meditation practice because you begin to identify the hamster wheel of patterns in your own mind. You get some space between your assumptions and open the door to a tiny little sliver of another perspective. It’s scary stuff as you can no longer rest on the laziness of “us vs. them” and you may have to develop a modicum of compassion for the people, countries and ideologies you have been well trained to hate.

Check out the book, “Vital Lies, Simple Truths” by Daniel Goleman. It’s short, clear and powerful. You will never look at politics and religion the same way again.